


No Happy Endings

by Rod



Category: Dr Who - Fandom, McFly
Genre: Depressing, Gen, POV Second Person, The Year That Never Was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no happy endings in the Year That Never Was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Happy Endings

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Dr Who belongs to the BBC. McFly belong to themselves. The typos belong to me.

You really believed in Mr Saxon. All the stuff he said, it all made sense, so you were happy when the others decided that you'd all do that political advert for him. This time, you'd get the right man in the job. This time, things really could only get better.

You watched the TV pictures as he stood there smiling on the _Vanguard_ , and you felt a sense of betrayal like you'd never known before. You had helped to get him there, and then he made those things appear, the Toclafane, and start killing for him. Decimating the Roman way, an old guy told you later; when a legion really fucked up, they went along the line and killed every tenth person.

Danny was the tenth person.

They played with him. They could have killed him quickly, just shot him and move on, but they cut him open like they wanted to see what was inside. You'll never forget hearing him scream, seeing his heart beat for the last time, and hearing them giggle as if it was some kind of game. You were so scared that you crapped yourself, convinced that they'd come after you next, or that you'd have to watch Tom or Harry die the same way.

But you were young and fit, all three of you, so they put you to work. You get to build the spaceships that would take this hell out to the stars. At the end of each day, when you're tired and hungry and penned into a house with all these strangers, you're glad that Danny never had to go through this. You feel guilty for thinking that he got off easily, but you still think it.

You had to watch it kill Tom by inches.

Harry tried to keep the three of you together, sane despite the insanity around you, but he couldn't reach Tom. Tom never said anything, but you could tell he was hurting. Having all his dreams of the future perverted like that, and being made to be a part of it, you don't think anything worse could have been done to him. Sometimes you wish it had been Tom that the Toclafane picked on, not Danny. That way at least you wouldn't have spent months worrying over him, and when it finally happened you wouldn't have blamed yourself.

You always got the outside jobs, wrenching the huge plates into position before sealing them into place with Mr Saxon's weird-ass technology. You hated every second of standing on that flimsy scaffolding, hundreds of feet above the ground, and you know it was ten times worse for Tom. You were looking out for it when the crane shifted in the wind and the plate swung away from the ship, and you called out the warning. You saw Tom step back just an inch too far and lose his balance. If the Toclafane had let you 'waste time' putting a guard rail up, if you'd lunged for him that bit faster, if Harry hadn't caught you before you followed Tom over the edge... but you saw his face as he fell, and it kills you every time you remember his expression.

Relief.

They wouldn't even let you go and collect his body. You'd have gone anyway and made them kill you too, but Harry stopped you. That night, when you crashed together on the lumpy mattress you shared, Harry held you as you sobbed your heart out. You don't know which one of you was more distressed.

There were rumours, there were always rumours, of people getting together to stop Saxon. Rumours of a woman, Faithful Martha, going round the world despite the Toclafane, pulling together a Resistance movement, doing something at least. After Tom, you wanted to go out and find her, join her, but Harry talked you out of it. Neither of you had any reason to be out and about, he pointed out, and the Toclafane would kill you for breaking curfew. You don't think he believed in the rumours anyway; all he'd say was that this woman was supposed to have been in Japan, and Japan _burned_.

That didn't stop other people in your work crew trying to form their own Resistance. For weeks there were furtive movements along your street, between the packed-out houses, as grim-faced people started to whisper in corners about how and where they would sabotage the rockets. Harry kept you away from them, much though you would have loved to strike out.

Then one day, without any explanation or fuss, the Toclafane swooped through the line of workers getting into the trucks out to the rocket pits and killed a dozen people. All Resistance people you thought, and you weren't the only one. That evening, it didn't take more than five minutes after you were shut back in the houses for the accusations to start flying.

You were smart enough to keep your head down, but it didn't help. When you are all crowded together like that, there's no escaping quarrels. You still don't know what you'd done to the guy who singled you out, telling everyone how you'd watched and avoided them, but he hated you for something. You know you've never been good at confrontations, so you were glad that Harry got in his face, telling him to back off because he knew you hadn't been a part of anything.

They shouted at each other, and then the other guy pushed at Harry. Harry fell back against you in a sort of slump, and you felt sick as you saw a knife sticking out of his chest. He just had time to give you this scared look and tell you he was sorry before he gave a shudder and... and... and when you looked up, the bastard was grinning at you.

They tell you you snapped his neck like a twig. You don't remember. All you know is that you woke up in the morning feeling emptier than you ever had before, holding Harry's cold body with the knife still in it. You nearly lost it all over again, but you weren't given that luxury. You did your work that day like a robot, mechanical and unfeeling, because you didn't dare let yourself think. Any of a hundred accidents could have killed you, but you got lucky. Or maybe not.

When you got back, Harry's body was gone. You didn't have anyone left any more.

Since then, you've just existed. You can't call it living; you're just going through the motions, waiting for the end. You know you scare the guy who shares the mattress with you now, but at least that means he doesn't smack you one when you can't stop crying. Because you know that this is all your fault; you stood up to be counted at the wrong time, you helped to get Saxon elected, so this whole nightmare happened because you screwed up.

You still hear the stories, but they don't mean anything to you any more. Faithful Martha and Jack the Deathless trying to free her Doctor, kept in a gilded cage by Saxon himself, that sort of fairy story promises a happy ending that you know you won't get even if you did think you deserved it. Maybe you will let yourself believe that they can overthrow Saxon, or maybe you won't.

It doesn't matter any more; your friends are dead, and not even the fairy-tale Doctor can bring them back to you.


End file.
